500 Ate Chris’ Self Portrait with Gentle Hands

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Written by Core Team Leader, Ren dela Cruz

May 9 was an exceptionally busy Saturday for U! Happy Events, as we had 3 scheduled events for the day. First up was that morning’s trip to Gentle Hands Inc. at Quezon City, whose kids are regularly visited by the team and our U! Happy volunteers. For this event, the children and volunteers were having an art workshop, sponsored by our birthday celebrant ate Christiane.

To start the morning’s workshop we first grouped our volunteers and the 28 kids in attendance, and had our event prerequisite “getting-to-know”. Everyone had a chance to share their favorites with their groupmates, and as added entertainment, kuya Harvard called on two of our volunteer-and-kid pairs in front, to do a spontaneous dance-off. The dance-off got everyone alert and energized, as they sang to the music and cheered on the contestants.

After getting-to-know, we started the artsy mood via a game called “Shape it Up” , where each group were handed a long colored string each, and had to form whatever shape kuya Harvard asked for. The group with the most number of successfully-formed shapes would then win the game. The children and volunteers got their competitive side on throughout the game, as they excitedly attempted to build various shapes, ranging from the basic square and triangle, to odd shapes such as a crown and a car!

After the game, the groups then got ready for the actual workshop led by one of our artists, ate Blanca. We brought out our art materials and handed them to the groups, as ate Blanca taught us how to make self-portrait mosaics from ripped pieces of art paper. The volunteers enthusiastically assisted the kids of Gentle Hands, who were very cutely focused on creating the best self-portraits they can make. The workshop ended with amazing and multi-colored portraits, which the kids proudly put on display for their ates and kuyas to see.

Once cleaning up was done, we distributed the food and drinks for the kids and volunteers to enjoy, as they let their artworks dry and got to know each other more. Following lunch time was a group photo, which also included a surprise birthday greeting for ate Christiane and other May celebrants. Our celebrants happily made their wish and blew the cake, and we commenced with several group shots for the event.

To cap off the colorful and awesome day, ate Christiane gave chocolates and storybooks to the children. As an added bonus, we gave away some brownies to everyone present too, courtesy of another generous U! Happy donor. We ended the event with big bear hugs from the children to the volunteers, thanking them for taking the time to give the gift of love and art that morning.